VIOLET BERRYING.
I called Violet a little berry girl, and I'll tell you why.
On the great hill above their hut, all over one side of it, were
blackberry vines; and in autumn, when the berries were ripe, Violet and
her mother would spend hours and hours picking them.
The sun would be scorching hot sometimes, and the thorny vines would
tangle into Violet's dress and tear her arms, and mosquitos would buzz
around her, until she was ready to cry or to declare she _could_ not
pick any more.
Poor Violet! _You_ think, perhaps, that it is hard to walk to school
under your parasol these sunny days; and she had, day after day, to
stand out there among the vines, picking, and picking, and picking, till
the two great water pails were full of berries.
But when she grew tired, Love would point to her poor old mother working
so patiently, and looking so tired and warm; and when the fairy
whispered, "Will you leave her here to finish the work _alone_?" Violet
would forget in a minute her own weariness, and sing and laugh so
merrily, and tell so often how fast her pail was filling up, that the
mother would forget _her_ weariness too, and only think how fortunate
and how rich she was to have such a good, bright child.
When she found a place where the berries grew thick and large, Violet
would call her mother to pick there; and old Mary, Reuben's wife, said
that "somehow she never could find such splendid places as Violet did."
So, leaving her there, the little girl would move on; and no matter how
low she found the bushes, or how thinly covered with fruit, fairy
Contentment, hovering over her head, would sing, "Who cares? The fewer,
the sweeter."
What with Contentment's singing, and that of Violet, and the crickets
and locusts, and the bees and bobolinks, there was music enough in the
blackberry pasture; and it all chimed together just like the instruments
in an orchestra.